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80% of success is showing up: Woody Allen

You are not alone. Sales professionals can and do fear cold calling. The idea of thick skinned sales people marching fearlessly into client offices and closing deals with fanfare is more fiction than fact. Yes, even those who have exceptional results in sales experience anxieties that go hand in hand with cold calling. You are human. Like all situations in life we can learn how to manage it.

If I told you that you can could rewire your brain to see the cold call differently would you be interested? I am sure you would. This is the first of a series on super sales and the brain, to help you get a better understanding of your chosen career and how you can make a difference – to yourself and others.

Our function is to change or improve mindsets so that selling is a pleasure. There are seven meta processes that help you by pass the fear of cold calling. Learn about all of them. They work. Neuroscience has proved that. Sign up for our newsletter and get the latest tips, insights and pearls of wisdom from great salespeople to enhance your career and your life.

A cold call is just that. A new call on an unknown person in unknown territory where the warmth and trust that bind a relationship is absent or not yet found. Today I am going to share a few meta processes with you that can change that fear. Brain based research shows why they work. A meta process means going beyond cookie cutter selling techniques (which are important) into really understanding what, how and why you do things. It’s a brain code for greater performance.

Cold calling is merciless. It sucks the warm blood from your fingers to the central parts of the body where the vital organs need it most – when the brain perceives a threat. This explains why your hands are cold and clammy when you need a warm confident handshake the most.

goes on in the brain with a cold call? Your brain does not like the uncertainty of the call. Yes or no hangs in the air. You feel like an ‘other’ or outsider to the company you are calling on. When you call on a new client it is not difficult to sense that this is unfamiliar territory and it is not your territory. You question your ability and value. Brain studies tell us we need to belong and be accepted. It is one of our most primitive responses to the environment and people. But there are more ‘brain/mind’ needs that drive us. We also need to feel that we have meaning and purpose. Let me explain.

I remember decades ago attending a seminar held by the great Prof Leo Buscaglia in San Francisco. He was a famous educationist, motivational speaker and a man who had to fight the odds to be accepted at his university and beyond for several reasons. The auditorium held 2000 delegates all waiting for his usual pearls of wisdom. He asked us all in the first session to write on a supplied piece of paper – how we would like to be remembered when he passed on in no more than ten words. By the afternoon his formidable team had tallied the results. 98% wrote “I want to know I made a difference” in their own words.

To Buscaglia, ‘life was a banquet’ and he was one of the first to encourage the warmth of human touch to open the relationship with a customer. His life’s theme was ‘make a difference.’

The Forbes magazine research team then took up the cudgels and guess what they found. That sales professionals who sold with ‘noble purpose’, who believed and wanted to make a difference produced not only the greatest results but also overcame that ‘cold call fear’ feeling.

When we are exposed to someone with noble purpose we are carried away. We feel the moment and we want to part of the bigger picture. Nelson Mandela was one person who sent that powerful message. You could sense his greatness just by being in the same room with him.

Sales people are valuable change agents. You are selling for a reason. You can change companies, countries and people. You are information agents that can drive improvements in product design and explain market trends. You are the turning points on which a company flourishes.

If I told you that you can could rewire your brain to see the cold call differently would you be interested? I am sure you would. This is the first of a series on super sales and the brain, to help you get a better understanding of your chosen career and how you can make a difference – to yourself and others.

Our function is to change or improve mindsets so that selling is a pleasure. There are seven meta processes that help you by pass the fear of cold calling. Learn about all of them. They work. Neuroscience has proved that.

Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people’s buttons. Either way, they create unnecessary complexity, strife, and worst of all stress.

Studies have long shown that stress can have a lasting, negative impact on the brain. Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampus—an important brain area responsible for reasoning and memory. Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to neuronal dendrites (the small “arms” that brain cells use to communicate with each other), and months of stress can permanently destroy neurons. Stress is a formidable threat to your success—when stress gets out of control, your brain and your performance suffer.

Most sources of stress at work are easy to identify. If your non-profit is working to land a grant that your organization needs to function, you’re bound to feel stress and likely know how to manage it. It’s the unexpected sources of stress that take you by surprise and harm you the most.

Recent research from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions—the same kind of exposure you get when dealing with toxic people—caused subjects’ brains to have a massive stress response. Whether it’s negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people drive your brain into a stressed-out state that should be avoided at all costs.

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to neutralize toxic people. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ to keep toxic people at bay.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when dealing with toxic people, what follows are twelve of the best. To deal with toxic people effectively, you need an approach that enables you, across the board, to control what you can and eliminate what you can’t. The important thing to remember is that you are in control of far more than you realize.

They Set Limits (Especially with Complainers)

Complainers and negative people are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to complainers because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear and getting sucked into their negative emotional spiral.

You can avoid this only by setting limits and distancing yourself when necessary. Think of it this way: if the complainer were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with complainers. A great way to set limits is to ask complainers how they intend to fix the problem. They will either quiet down or redirect the conversation in a productive direction.

They Don’t Die in the Fight

Successful people know how important it is to live to fight another day, especially when your foe is a toxic individual. In conflict, unchecked emotion makes you dig your heels in and fight the kind of battle that can leave you severely damaged. When you read and respond to your emotions, you’re able to choose your battles wisely and only stand your ground when the time is right.

They Rise Above

Toxic people drive you crazy because their behaviour is so irrational. Make no mistake about it; their behaviour truly goes against reason. So why do you allow yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix?

The more irrational and off-base someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their traps. Quit trying to beat them at their own game. Distance yourself from them emotionally and approach your interactions like they’re a science project (or you’re their shrink, if you prefer the analogy). You don’t need to respond to the emotional chaos—only the facts.

They Stay Aware of Their Emotions

Maintaining an emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where you’ll need to regroup and choose the best way forward. This is fine and you shouldn’t be afraid to buy yourself some time to do so.

Think of it this way—if a mentally unstable person approaches you on the street and tells you he’s John F. Kennedy, you’re unlikely to set him straight. When you find yourself with a co-worker who is engaged in similarly derailed thinking, sometimes it’s best to just smile and nod. If you’re going to have to straighten them out, it’s better to give yourself some time to plan the best way to go about it.

They Establish Boundaries

This is the area where most people tend to sell themselves short. They feel like because they work or live with someone, they have no way to control the chaos. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Once you’ve found your way to Rise Above a person, you’ll begin to find their behaviour more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you have to put up with them and when you don’t. For example, even if you work with someone closely on a project team, that doesn’t mean that you need to have the same level of one-on-one interaction with them that you have with other team members.

You can establish a boundary, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively. If you let things happen naturally, you are bound to find yourself constantly embroiled in difficult conversations. If you set boundaries and decide when and where you’ll engage a difficult person, you can control much of the chaos. The only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the person tries to encroach upon them, which they will.

They Won’t Let Anyone Limit Their Joy

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them.

While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what toxic people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.

They Don’t Focus on Problems—Only Solutions

Where you focus your attention determines your emotional state. When you fixate on the problems you’re facing, you create and prolong negative emotions and stress. When you focus on actions to better yourself and your circumstances, you create a sense of personal efficacy that produces positive emotions and reduces stress.

When it comes to toxic people, fixating on how crazy and difficult they are gives them power over you. Quit thinking about how troubling your difficult person is, and focus instead on how you’re going to go about handling them. This makes you more effective by putting you in control, and it will reduce the amount of stress you experience when interacting with them.

They Don’t Forget

Emotionally intelligent people are quick to forgive, but that doesn’t mean that they forget. Forgiveness requires letting go of what’s happened so that you can move on. It doesn’t mean you’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Successful people are unwilling to be bogged down unnecessarily by others’ mistakes, so they let them go quickly and are assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.

They Squash Negative Self-Talk

Sometimes you absorb the negativity of other people. There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about how someone is treating you, but your self-talk (the thoughts you have about your feelings) can either intensify the negativity or help you move past it. Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It sends you into a downward emotional spiral that is difficult to pull out of. You should avoid negative self-talk at all costs.

They Limit Their Caffeine Intake

Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favour of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re surprised in the hallway by an angry co-worker.

They Get Some Sleep

I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present.

A good night’s sleep makes you more positive, creative, and proactive in your approach to toxic people, giving you the perspective you need to deal effectively with them.

They Use Their Support System

It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To deal with toxic people, you need to recognize the weaknesses in your approach to them. This means tapping into your support system to gain perspective on a challenging person. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as explaining the situation can lead to a new perspective. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation.

Bringing It All Together

Before you get this system to work brilliantly, you’re going to have to pass some tests. Most of the time, you will find yourself tested by touchy interactions with problem people. Thankfully, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mould and change as you practice new behaviours, even when you fail. Implementing these healthy, stress-relieving techniques for dealing with difficult people will train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the likelihood of ill effects.

Knowledge to Motion offers Emotional Intelligence training. Kindly contact us for more information.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Travis Bradberry, Ph.D.
Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence tests, emotional intelligence training, and emotional intelligence certification, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

]]>http://k2mtraining.co.za/successful-people-handle-toxic-people/feed/0This 75-Year Harvard Study Found the One Secret to Leading a Fulfilling Lifehttp://k2mtraining.co.za/75-year-harvard-study-found-one-secret-leading-fulfilling-life/
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Here’s some wisdom gleaned from one of the longest longitudinal studies ever conducted.

Prioritizing what’s important is challenging in today’s world. The split focus required to maintain a career and a home, not to mention a Facebook feed, can feel overwhelming.

For over 75 years, Harvard’s Grant and Glueck study has tracked the physical and emotional well-being of two populations: 456 poor men growing up in Boston from 1939 to 2014 (the Grant Study), and 268 male graduates from Harvard’s classes of 1939-1944 (the Glueck study).

Due to the length of the research period, this has required multiple generations of researchers. Since before WWII, they’ve diligently analysed blood samples, conducted brain scans (once they became available), and pored over self-reported surveys, as well as actual interactions with these men, to compile the findings.

The conclusion? According to Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one thing surpasses all the rest in terms of importance:

“The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”

Not how much is in your 401(k). Not how many conferences you spoke at–or keynoted. Not how many blog posts you wrote or how many followers you had or how many tech companies you worked for or how much power you wielded there or how much you vested at each.

No, the biggest predictor of your happiness and fulfilment overall in life is, basically, love.

Specifically, the study demonstrates that having someone to rely on helps your nervous system relax, helps your brain stay healthier for longer, and reduces both emotional as well as physical pain.

The data is also very clear that those who feel lonely are more likely to see their physical health decline earlier and die younger.

“It’s not just the number of friends you have, and it’s not whether or not you’re in a committed relationship,” says Waldinger. “It’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.”

What that means is this:

It doesn’t matter whether you have a huge group of friends and go out every weekend or if you’re in a “perfect” romantic relationship (as if those exist). It’s the quality of the relationships–how much vulnerability and depth exists within them; how safe you feel sharing with one another; the extent to which you can relax and be seen for who you truly are, and truly see another.

According to George Vaillant, the Harvard psychiatrist who directed the study from 1972 to 2004, there are two foundational elements to this:

“One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away.”

Thus, if you’ve found love (in the form of a relationship, let’s say) but you undergo a trauma like losing a job, losing a parent, or losing a child, and you don’t deal with that trauma, you could end up “coping” in a way that pushes love away.

This is a very good reminder to prioritize not only connection but your own capacity to process emotions and stress. If you’re struggling, get a good therapist. Join a support group. Invest in a workshop. Get a grief counsellor. Take personal growth seriously so you are available for connection.

Because the data is clear that, in the end, you could have all the money you’ve ever wanted, a successful career, and be in good physical health, but without loving relationships, you won’t be happy.

The next time you’re scrolling through Facebook instead of being present at the table with your significant other, or you’re considering staying late at the office instead of getting together with your close friend, or you catch yourself working on a Saturday instead of going to the farmer’s market with your sister, consider making a different choice.

“Relationships are messy and they’re complicated,” acknowledges Waldinger. But he’s adamant in his research-backed assessment:

“The good life is built with good relationships.”

Attend our Emotional Intelligence training course to create better relationships with those you care about. Contact us for more information.

]]>http://k2mtraining.co.za/75-year-harvard-study-found-one-secret-leading-fulfilling-life/feed/0The Benefits and Challenges of Diversity in the Workplacehttp://k2mtraining.co.za/benefits-challenges-diversity-workplace/
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Workplace diversity refers to the differences between people in an organization. That sounds simple, but diversity encompasses race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality, cognitive style, education, background and more.

Diversity not only involves how people perceive themselves, but how they perceive others. Those perceptions affect their interactions with each other.

An organization’s success and competitiveness depends upon its ability to embrace diversity and realize the benefits.

When organizations embrace diversity, multiple benefits are reported such as:

Advantages of Diversity in the Workplace

Workers with diverse cultural backgrounds bring unique experiences and perceptions to the table. Pooling this wealth of knowledge and skills can benefit companies by allowing the organisation to adapt quicker to changing market conditions.

Job seekers are drawn to companies with diverse workforces because it is evident that the companies do not practice employment discrimination. Potential employees want to know that employers treat their staff fairly. Not only are such firms able to attract new talent but they can also retain existing talent because of high employee morale resulting from workforce diversity.

A diverse collection of skills e.g. language and cultural understanding allows a company to provide service to customers on a global basis.

A diverse workforce that feels comfortable communicating varying points of view provides a larger pool of ideas and innovative solutions.

Spending time with culturally diverse co-workers can slowly break down the subconscious barriers of ethnocentrism and xenophobia.

Diversity in leadership within a firm allows managers to bring in new skills and methods for achieving unity within their teams.

According to EthnoConnect, a consulting company specializing in workforce diversity, employees from diverse backgrounds bring in a variety of solutions on how to achieve a common goal. As more diverse ideas are suggested, the chances of finding a workable answer are improved.

Customer service representatives can be paired up with customers from their specific demographic, making the customer feel comfortable with the representative, and thus with the company.

Challenges of Diversity in the Workplace

Taking full advantage of the benefits of diversity in the workplace is not without its challenges. Some of those challenges are:

Effective communication can be a challenge between employees of diverse cultures, which can directly dampen productivity and the cohesiveness of small groups.

Social integration at work can only be influenced to a small degree. The formation of cliques and exclusive social groups is a natural process that is impossible to control.

There are always employees who will refuse to accept the fact that the social and cultural makeup of their workplace is changing. The “we’ve always done it this way” mentality silences new ideas and inhibits progress.

As the economy becomes increasingly global, our workforce becomes increasingly diverse. Organizational success and competitiveness will depend on the ability to manage diversity in the workplace effectively. Evaluate your organization’s diversity policies and plan for the future, starting today.

Get in touch with us for more information on cultural diversity training

]]>http://k2mtraining.co.za/benefits-challenges-diversity-workplace/feed/0The Characteristics of a Great Secretaryhttp://k2mtraining.co.za/characteristics-great-secretary/
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So what are the qualities that make up a great Secretary?

Communication

Communication skills are the most important quality for a Secretary. Secretaries who speak and write well help shape a positive image of their company. Secretaries write letters, memos and meeting minutes, so they need to know grammar, punctuation and spelling. They also speak with co-workers at all levels of the organization and with members of the public, so they must talk in clear and concise sentences. Secretaries must listen to the needs of others, they should give complete attention to what people say and ask questions to understand their concerns.

Organized and Detail Oriented

In a busy office, attention to details is a must, as is multitasking. The secretary has to wear many different hats to succeed in this role.

When the manager has conflicting priorities, the secretary must balance those duties to make sure key projects meet deadlines. She must be able to organize files and handle incoming and outgoing communication and mail, keep records, pay bills and know the company’s procedures and policies.

On a typical day, the secretary might be on the phone, working a spreadsheet and opening mail all at the same time. It is essential to be able to focus and know how to prioritize workflow.

Technology

Secretaries work with every imaginable piece of office equipment, from computers to photocopiers. They also work with software for word processing, desktop publishing, database management and spreadsheets. Because technology changes constantly, secretaries must be comfortable adapting to new equipment. Troubleshooting equipment issues is also part of the job for many secretaries.

Judgment

The ability to make sound decisions without supervision, is important. Executive assistants need to anticipate or recognize problems and refer them immediately to the right person for resolution. They need to determine the strengths and weaknesses of solutions to problems with logic and sound reasoning

Teamwork

A secretary must understand she’s part of a team and she must establish and maintain working relationships with staff at various levels within her organisation as well as with clients.

Secretaries should collaborate with their executives and work to form and accomplish mutual goals. In the best working relationships, secretaries and executives see accomplishments as joint efforts

Master of Time Management

Different people will always be asking for your time or to help them with some project or another. You may not always be able to say no, but do make sure you don’t get pulled into too many random tasks at once. Take care of our boss and your department first before dealing with others.

Learn to prioritize and create a daily to-do list. Learn to handle urgent matters immediately. The quicker you can resolve an issue, the quicker you can cross items off your to do list.

Deal with Office Politics and Confidentiality

Secretaries not only deal with problems and complaints from customers but from employees as well. Sometimes the problems are professional, but at times it can be personal issues. The best advice is to stay neutral and be diplomatic. Failing that, you should then advocate for your boss or department’s best interest. Your job isn’t necessarily to resolve these issues, that is often handled at management level, but you will have to act as a messenger or liaison, so always be diplomatic, fair and helpful.

You may have to handle sensitive documents or knowledge at times and your job is to protect that confidentiality. At no time should you leak sensitive information or be a gossip. That could sink your career real quick and in some cases lead to dismissal as well.

Knowledge to Motion offers a 3 day comprehensive Secretarial course. Should you require more information, kindly contact us.

Think of a time when you received great customer care? How did you feel? Common think about it.

Now think of a time when you received bad customer care. What happened? How did it make you feel?

Keep in mind that our idea of what either good or bad customer service is, is based on 15% rational decision making and 85% emotional decision making. Another Harvard study said that only 5% is rational. (Donna J. Sturgess at the World Innovation Forum).

Customer service is a highly important part of every business. If your company is unable or unwilling to provide proper customer service, there is a great risk that your company may lose a valued customer. Did you know that 86% of customers will not return to your company if they receive bad customer service?

A few reasons why Customer Service is so important:

• It improves customer satisfaction;
• It reduces negative word of mouth;
• It improves accountability and responsibility within your business;
• It ensures all clients will receive accurate information about your business.

So what are the Characteristics of Excellent Customer Service?

• Reliability: Do you do what you promise to do, in the timelines you promise to do it in?
• Courtesy: All customers deserve politeness, friendliness, patience and respect.
• Credibility: Do you deliver on the promises your company makes in its slogan, tag line, mission statement, vision statement and advertising?
• Consistency: Do you consistently offer good service? How do you treat customer’s when you are feeling a bit off day or when you under pressure?
• Seamless Service: Clients appreciate a smooth, seamless process for addressing their needs.
• Resourcefulness: Clients expect you to find solutions when there appears to be none. Do you go the extra mile for your client?

Here are 4 steps to handle customer complaints:

1. Active listening: Active listening requires you to be quiet and listen. Did you know that we only remember 25% of what we hear?
2. Empathy statement: Starting your sentence with an “I” statement puts you in your customer’s shoes. E.g. “Ï can hear that you are……..” Always remember, “You” statements sounds argumentative and will make your client even more irate. E.g. “You should have . . .” )
3. Paraphrase: Paraphrase in your own words what you have heard the client say, this will not only ensure that you heard your client correctly, but also let the client know that you care about what they are saying.
4. Ask open-end questions: Asking open-ended questions will involve the client and will take the focus of their emotions.

It is important to understand that even in the most customer centric business, mistakes do happen and from time to time a customer complaint will need to be escalated.

It is a good idea to escalate the complaint when:

• When no common ground or solution can be found;
• If threats are made against you.

These are only few tips on good customer service, remember that a satisfied customer will up to 5, no wait that is before social media, now it is up to 1200 people about the excellent customer service they have received from you and your company.

Six Thinking Hats is a system designed by Edward de Bono which describes a tool for group and individual thinking involving six colored hats.

The basis of the method is that the human brain thinks in a number of distinct ways which can be deliberately challenged allowing one to develop tactics for thinking about particular issues.

Teams will benefit from working with the 6 Thinking Hats in the following ways:

• Maximize productive collaboration and minimize counterproductive interaction/behaviour;
• Consider issues, problems, decisions, and opportunities systematically;
• Use Parallel Thinking as a group or team to generate more, better ideas and solutions;
• Make meetings much shorter and more productive;
• Reduce conflict among team members or meeting participants;
• Stimulate innovation by generating more and better ideas quickly;
• Create dynamic, results oriented meetings that make people want to participate;
• Go beyond the obvious to discover effective alternate solutions;
• Spot opportunities where others see only problems;
• Think clearly and objectively;
• View problems from new and unusual angles;
• Make thorough evaluations;
• See all sides of a situation;
• Keep egos and “turf protection” in check;
• Achieve significant and meaningful results in a less time.

Six distinct directions are identified and assigned a color. The six directions are:

Coloured hats are used as metaphors for each direction. Switching to a direction is symbolised by either, physically or metaphorically putting on a coloured hat.

THE WHITE HAT: The white hat asks for the facts and figures to be put forward in a neutral and objective way. The white hat thinking person will request information and should be focusing on the questions in order to obtain information or to fill in information gaps.

THE RED HAT: Red hat thinking is all about emotions and feelings and non-rational aspects of thinking. No logical explanation has to be given for the feeling. The Red hat covers two broad types of feelings. Firstly, there are the ordinary emotions as we know them, ranging from the strong emotions such as fear and dislike to more subtle ones such as suspicion. Secondly, there are the complex judgements that go into such types of feelings as hunch, intuition, sense, taste, aesthetic feeling and other not visibly justified types of feelings

THE BLACK HAT: The black hat thinker is always logical. Black hat thinking is negative but it is not emotional. Black hat thinking does look on the “dark side” or “black side” of things, but this is always a logical blackness.

With the red hat no reasons has to be given for a negative feeling. With the black hat logical and relevant reasons must always be given. Black hat thinking must be truthful, but it does not have to be fair. Black hat thinking presents the logical-negative: why something will not work. The black hat thinker will present the gloomy and negative side, why it can’t be done.

YELLOW HAT: Yellow hat thinking is positive and constructive. The yellow colour symbolizes sunshine, brightness and optimism. Yellow hat thinking is concerned with positive assessment just as the black hat thinking is concerned with negative assessment.

Yellow hat thinking covers a positive spectrum ranging from the logical, the practical, the dreams, the visions and hopes of the yellow hat thinker. Positive thinking is a mixture of curiosity, pleasure, greed and a desire to make things happen.

GREEN HAT: Green hat thinking is for creative thinking. The green hat indicates creativity and new ideas. It keeps the mind open to ALL ideas. Don’t belittle any ideas. This hat is all about creative, weird and wacky ideas. Remember extreme ideas may trigger a more realistic idea that wouldn’t have been thought of otherwise.

BLUE HAT: The blue hat thinker is concerned with control and the organization of the thinking process. Wearing the blue hat we are no longer thinking about the subject, instead, we are thinking about the thinking needed to explore that subject. Blue also suggests detachment and being cool and in control.

From time to time the blue hat thinker gives an overview of what has been happening and what has been achieved.

Modus Operandi

De Bono believed that the key to a successful use of the Six Thinking Hats methodology was the deliberate focusing of the discussion on a particular approach as needed during the meeting or collaboration session. For instance, a meeting may be called to review a particular problem and to develop a solution for the problem. The Six Thinking Hats method could then be used in a sequence to first explore the problem, then develop a set of solutions, and to finally choose a solution through critical examination of the solution set.

The meeting may start with everyone assuming the blue hat to discuss how the meeting will be conducted and to develop the goals and objectives. The discussion may then move to red hat thinking in order to collect opinions and reactions to the problem. This phase may also be used to develop constraints for the actual solution such as who will be affected by the problem and/or solutions. Next the discussion may move to the (yellow then) green hat in order to generate ideas and possible solutions. Next the discussion may move between white hat thinking as part of developing information and black hat thinking to develop criticisms of the solution set.

Because everyone is focused on a particular approach at any one time, the group tends to be more collaborative than if one person is reacting emotionally (Red hat) while another person is trying to be objective (White hat) and still another person is being critical of the points which emerge from the discussion (Black hat). The hats aid individuals in addressing problems from a variety of angles, and focus individuals on deficiencies in the way that they approach problem solving.